April 4, 2014

And the accompanying story in Billboard read: "Just about everyone is tired of the Beatles... Disk jockeys are tired of playing the hit group.... The writers of trade and consumer publication articles are tired of writing about them and the manufacturers of product other than the Beatles are tired of hearing about them."

Who has come the closest to matching this Top-5 showing? Clue: The year was 2005 and the spots occupied were ##1, 4, and 5.

31 comments:

I think I remember reading that dying the Disco Era the Bee Gees had like 5 songs they either sang or wrote in the top 10. I may be a bit off on the specifics, but it was a pretty impressive stat to say the lease.

On the US Billboard Hot 100 chart for 25 March 1978, five songs written by the Gibbs were in the US top ten at the same time: "Night Fever", "Stayin' Alive", "If I Can't Have You", "Emotion" and "Love is Thicker Than Water".

The Beatles were annoying in 1964. "She Loves You" and "I Wanna Hold Your Hand", etc. I would not have guessed, were I judging pop music back then, that the Beatles were capable of growing into the band they became.

The Beatles were, I think, more of a visual phenomena than musical one, at lest at first. The stylistic devices which reduced their audiences to hysterics were all about movement and appearance. The seamless and engaging manner in which the left-handed Paul McCartney shared a microphone with right-handed George Harrison, the unique violin-shaped bass guitar, the handsome lettering on the bass drum all contributed to that visual effect. As for the music, it was cheerful, optimistic, and upbeat, a perfect combination for the visuals.

I do recall a lot of talk, "back in the day", about the Beatles and their physical appearance, especially the hair. However, years down the road, a lot of analysis has been done to breakdown how the Beatles altered the technique of how songs were written, especially in terms of revising basic song structure. Btw, I like your new photo. :-D

I do recall a lot of talk, "back in the day", about the Beatles and their physical appearance, especially the hair. However, years down the road, a lot of analysis has been done to breakdown how the Beatles altered the technique of how songs were written, especially in terms of revising basic song structure. Btw, I like your new photo. :-D

Not long ago, I rented a DVD of Beatles Ed Sullivan performances - and I was shocked at the (low) level of stagecraft and musicianship. Watched "Gimme Shelter" and "The TAMI Show" and thought the same thing.

I think the discrepancy between the Billboard article and Wikipedia has to do with the fact that 50 Cent was "featured" in one of those songs. So the song wasn't credited to him as the main artist. A lot of rap and hip hop artists appear on each other's recordings.

Dean Martin's always said his proudest moment was when "Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime" knocked the Fabs out of the #1 spot in 1964. Who would have thought Dean could've slated that four headed dragon?

If you want to goose the sales of your book which could have been titled "One Hundred Years of American Pop Music", you title it How the Beatles Destroyed Rock'n'Roll. (By the way, your Amazon Althouse Portal post links back to the blog, not your portal.)

The author does make the case that the Beatles marked a definitive break between popular music for listening versus popular music for dancing, and in that sense, "destroyed" rock music. But that was after they had all top 5 songs.

I graduated from law school in 1968, and that's about when popular music ended for me. I've been an oldies guy since then.

But still, the Beatles were a remarkable phenomenon. The 5 pop favorites on Billboard were great for what/when they were -- and the Beatles had the top 4 spots the week before, and the top 3 spots the two weeks before that. I thought they reached their peak with Rubber Soul and Sergeant Pepper (but that's probably a function of when I left school and entered the grown-up world).